Prove Them Wrong
by The Lonesome Rose
Summary: It started with a target. It would continue with two parallel organizations. Where it would end, no one could say. Not even them.
1. Prologue

For this story, I'm doing something completely different and teaming up with Hawkward Russian to join our characters (Clint Barton and June Monroe). We've been working together for a couple months now on this pairing. To get a better sense of Ana Petrovna/June Monroe, read "In Shadows of Grey" by Hawkward Russian.

I own nothing and write purely for enjoyment.

Please leave a review on your way out! And check out Hawkward Russian's stories too!

* * *

" **These violent delights have violent ends**

 **And in their triumph die, like fire and powder**

 **Which, as they kiss, consume"**

― **William Shakespeare,** _ **Romeo and Juliet**_

A biting wind nipped at his exposed arms as the sun itself seemed to be caught in Mikael Petrov's fist, slowly bleeding orange and red as it was dragged beneath the marble fortress. The sniper shrugged on his coat, gripping the Lobaev between his knees. He ducked down as a flap of wings came close to his ear, snapping the rifle back up and watched a Shikra fly after the imprisoned sun, a limp songbird in its talons.

Four hours gone and no one had left the house yet. The sniper muttered about bad intel and was ready to begin disassembling the Lobaev when the patio doors swung open. At the sight of Petrov's wife, Katya, the sniper immediately straightened and brought the rifle to rest against his sore shoulder. His target crossed the patio to the rose bush then she bent down, garden shears in hand, caressing the tender petals as she leaned in close to drink in their perfume. Above her, the sniper stilled his hands. He could already feel the engine vibrating beneath him as a plane took him back to the States. Lining up the shot, he let out a slow breath then released the trigger. As soon as he'd taken the shot, he slid down the tree and ran from the Petrov estate.

Behind him, Petrov's daughter flew out of the house and fell to her knees beside her mother. She looked up once in time to see the sniper fleeing, swearing vengeance on him, before she helped servants lift Katya and carry her back to the safety of the house.

White roses snipped free from the bush now lay abandoned, bloodstained and crushed on the patio.


	2. Two Months Later

"…and is in a peaceful place though we still carry her in our memories. A woman like Katya who has touched the lives of so many through her gentleness and kindness can never completely die…."

Ana Petrovna stood beside her father as the minister droned on about how _wonderful_ her mother had been and how _tragic_ it was that her guiding light had been extinguished. She didn't want to be here surrounded by friends of her father's and their wives. Haughtily, she scanned the crowd through the corners of her eyes while she held her head rigidly facing the casket. The men who allowed a few tears and the women who cried openly. She envied all of them. Her mother was dead in front of her and her father wouldn't permit her to so much as become teary-eyed.

" _Emotions are a weakness, my Ana. They signal the masters from the servants."_ Her father's warning came to her suddenly though she wanted nothing more than curl in a ball and to mourn the mother she had lost.

 _Though it had been a single shot to the collarbone, the bullet had shattered the bone and infected. Katya, too pained to leave bed most days, would request her to bring her roses and would whisper instructions for her only child for when she was gone._

" _Stay strong, my raven. Your father may be proud, but you are too good hearted to become like him." Katya clung to Ana's arm pleadingly. "Do not follow tradition as he does. It has only led our family down dark paths."_

" _Don't leave me," begged Ana, her tears dripping onto the first quilt that Katya had taught her to sew._

 _Don't leave me._

Ana pulled at the locket around her neck and thumbed it open to see the portrait of her mother there. Without her mother to soothe the dark Petrov household, she knew she wanted no part of it. And the sniper, who had killed her mother… she would find him and cause him as much misery as he'd caused her. Gripping the locket hard, she imagined it was the coward's throat. Slowly breaking him off from life… at a sharp sound from Mikael, Ana dropped her hand down and checked her emotionless face.

"…in a better place." The minister finished and stepped back as the crowd drew forward in twos to toss flowers onto the casket then filed over to where Ana and her father stood with empty murmurs of " _We're so sorry for your loss" "She'll be greatly missed" "Come to us if you need anything"_. Ana mumbled thanks she didn't feel, her face an impenetrable mask that seemed a betrayal to her mother.

A firm hand found its way to her lower back. "We can leave soon," came Sasha Zamir's voice from beside her. "You don't need to stand around while these pathetic people sob and say how sorry they are. People die. That's how it is." He leaned in to kiss her, but Ana turned away. Sasha was as cold as her father was.

"I want to go now," she said. "If my father wants to stay and accept congratulations, that's his desire and not mine." Pulling away from Sasha, she pushed her way through the small crowd that had congealed around them so she could whisper a last goodbye to her mother.

 _Why did you have to leave me alone?_ Her hand fell to the wooden lid, thorns pricking her fingers. _Don't leave me._

"I'm sorry."

At the voice, she looked up to see a young man in denim and leather who was definitely not a member of her father's league nor Russian. His eyes were rimmed with tears and his fingers worried the stem of a single white rose, thorns covering his hands with dozens of tiny bleeding cuts.

"You and everyone else is sorry," she replied, her voice cold. "Try saying it again and see if it brings my mother back."

He dipped his head, ashamed. Muttering another apology, he placed his rose on the casket and turned away.

Grabbing the rose by its top, Ana crushed it until the petals came away in her hands. They came away dotted in blood.

"I'm ready to leave now," she announced to Sasha when he joined her. Her voice was harder than diamonds, but every bit of her was breaking inside.

While they had been gone, the servants had already disposed of all evidence that Katya Petrovna had ever lived in the house. One family photo had been permitted by Mikael to remain on the parlor wall, but everywhere else was emptied of her existence. Ana wandered the miles of mansion seeking any sign that her mother's presence was still there with her.

"Where are my mother's pictures?" she demanded of a maid who was dusting the master bedroom.

"Orders, my lady," said the maid. Taking sympathy on the motherless girl, she pulled out a small cardboard box, which she quickly pushed into her mistress' hands. "You didn't get this from me."

Cradling her treasure to her chest, Ana rushed to her room and locked the door behind her before she sat on her bed and overturned the box. Photos, jewelry, a lock of hair, a thin satin shirt. She immediately put on the shirt and her mother's wedding ring before sifting through the rest of the contents.

"You left me." Ana dropped the photos she was holding and buried her face in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably.

Once the final stragglers had left for their cars, Clint moved back to the casket— the sight of his crushed rose dismaying. "I didn't… I should've said no…" he leaned against the casket, hands braced against it as he felt the grief catch in his throat like a leaden anchor. "It was supposed to be for Petrov."

 _I'm not that kind of killer. I only go after the people who deserve it._

But as he felt the wooden tomb, his fingers slipping against the polished lid, he knew he'd taken the plunge into becoming the innocent-murdering assassin he'd never wanted to be. Up till now he'd only taken jobs he could justify. But this… it was only supposed to be a warning. She wasn't supposed to die.

"Katya" he said, the syllables of the dead woman bits of glass in his mouth. "Katya. _Katya_." Then he closed his eyes and remembered her blissful smile, the way she caressed the petals, her inaudible gasp as the bullet embedded in her collarbone and how she'd stumbled and her precious roses fell in the dirt.

Clint Barton remembered every person he'd ever killed. He knew their names, their faces, their lives and the families that they'd left behind. But all the other people had been terrorists, killers or criminals themselves. Katya had been his first cold blood.

Initially, SHIELD had sent him here on commission to the Russian Peace Corps when some domestic unsettlement had begun to affect more of the community than anyone would admit publicly. From the outside, it was a dark cloud positioned over the country. For the natives, it was weeds springing up here and there that could be traced back to the half dozen most powerful families in Russia. Everyone—even his handler—had told him _at whatever the cost_ to bring peace.

"We've traced the worst of it back to the Petrov family," his Russian handler Yashina had briefed. She had surveyed him keenly as soon as he'd walked into headquarters and had shaken her head at the idea that an American sniper, barely out of his teens, would be enough to collapse a corrupt family. "Mikael Petrov is the shark in deep waters who bites at the rest and shakes them until they've bled out. He's cunning, vindictive and we can't legally prosecute."

"So I get close to take a shot at him and let you do the rest?"

Yashina gave him that look, although he'd actually paid attention to her this time. "Once you take a shot at Mikael Petrov, he will remember you and wait for years until you forget before he stabs you in the back."

He waved dismissively. "I don't forget a target."

"Then remember this one." She handed him a photo and his heart dropped when he saw it was a brunette with soft eyes and angular face who couldn't have been more than eighteen.

"That's not Petrov."

"No. It's not. Your target is Petrov's daughter Ana."

"But…"

Yashina thrust another photo at him. "If she cannot be caught alone, your target is Petrov's wife, Katya."

"No" he said sharply, crumpling the photo in a ball. "The deal was Petrov. I go after him, _not_ his daughter or his wife. If that's the kind of help you wanted, you should've made your position clearer to my handler before he sent me over here."

"Agent Barton…"

"I don't kill people who don't deserve it, got that?" He threw her a glare. "Just because I'm some backwater American doesn't mean my morals are any less compromised than yours are. I do the job, I take out Petrov and you pay me. That was the deal passed along to me."

Yashina made a low noise of dissatisfaction. "If you question every opportunity you are offered, how will you survive at what you do best? No, don't look at me like that. Petrov is a problem and he is our problem and you will follow our orders to deal with him."

Clint would've walked out then and there if her following words hadn't stopped him where he stood.

"Mikael Petrov is harming the entire country. Innocent people are being swept into these family wars. Isn't that what SHIELD does, Agent Barton? You protect the innocent people." She walked to a rack of advanced weaponry and, after sizing him up, handed him an inconspicuous army-grade sniper rifle. "You don't have to kill either of them. You just need to take a shot so we can get Mikael out into the open."

 _This is how the morals degrade,_ he'd thought as he'd accepted the gun. _It begins with one exception made for the right reason. Let an innocent person get hurt so the rest of the civilians can stay safe._

At the time it had almost been funny since he'd gotten the answer he'd always been wondering about why assassins targeted the wrong people.

Blinking away rogue tears, Clint muttered a final apology and pulled away. If Yashina, the entire Russian government or even his handler told him to take a second shot at Petrov through his daughter, he'd tell them to screw themselves and find someone more bloodthirsty to finish the job.

Ana stared at the empty fourth seat until Mikael curtly ordered a servant to have it taken away. As it was carried from the room, she felt the last piece of her heart go with it.

"Now listen to me, Ana. We will not speak of your mother again in my house." His voice, through right next to her, sounded as though it were miles away. "Do you hear me?"

"Yes" she said, her voice devoid of emotion as she lifted one hand to her left shoulder in a sign of respect. "I obey."

Sasha took her hand as she lowered it, pressing it to his lips but he might as well have been kissing a corpse.


	3. What it Made

Over the next few days, Ana threw herself into her training sessions with Sasha and avoided her father as much as was possible. This holding pattern wouldn't save her from Mikael's will for long—for years now he had been going on about the lavish wedding she and Sasha would have when they married even though Ana had repeatedly insisted she didn't love him. How could she when they had grown up together so closely and Sasha was dark like her father? When they were together, he spoke of how to advance the Petrov empire, how their children would bring all of Russia to its knees as they became the ruling family. To sate the other prominent families, they would arrange marriages among their children and tie family bonds over the dissent that would stir. A bird with its wings cut off that could only screech.

But Sasha was the only stability in her life. He loved her, if that could be called love, and would provide for her till she died.

 _Could I stay here and become my father's daughter?_ That, more than anything else, scared her. With Katya dead, there was no one to calm Petrov's temper and ambition but her. _Can I ignore the memory of my mother by becoming the thing she wanted least?_ Ana sat cross-legged on the bed, shifting through her mother's things again as though she'd find the answers she was seeking amongst them. "Should I leave?" Katya's soft eyes seemed to smile back at her from the photo. A knock at the door and a panicked Ana shoved the contents back into the box. "A minute!"

She pushed the box beneath her bed just as the knob turned and snatched up a brush to run through her damp hair, pulling her robe more tightly closed as Mikael entered.

"You have mourned long enough, my Ana," he said, coming to sit beside her and taking the brush from her hand. "The other families will see this loss as weakness." Rhythmically, he began running the brush through her hair. "It is time you married Sasha."

Ana stiffened. "But would it not be a better show of power if you took a new wife?" Her hands clenched in her lap, everything screaming that she had to get away now before Sasha purged all the good that was left in her.

"It doesn't work like that. Everyone has been waiting for you to take a husband. Your mother and I were married when she was seventeen and you are nearly two years older." His hand brushed her cheek. "Is this the display of power we wish to show our country?"

"No, father."

"Then what will you do to show them we are still strong?" Mikael's tone was authoritative, leaving no room for argument.

"Marry Sasha." _And I'll stay here and become as corrupted as you are. Is corruption your idea of a power show for our enemies?_ It was exactly what her mother _wouldn't_ want.

"Yes" Mikael set down the brush and pulled her hair into a tight ponytail. "You and Sasha will raise this family higher than it's ever been."

And as he went on about everything the three of them would do, Ana knew just how her mother had felt all those years ago when she had discovered Mikael's true nature.

Trudging among the crowd of fellow passengers with his duffle slung over one shoulder in the procession out of the gate and to the ground of JFK, Clint felt ten years older. He kept his eyes forward, catching glimpses of phones coming out to call loved ones and the smiles of anticipated reunions. It was a joy he didn't feel.

He'd run thousands of miles away from a problem he couldn't fix. And worse, he'd been _congratulated_ on it by the Russians. Yashina had dismissed his concerns in favor of a victory. He'd gotten close enough to Petrov, meaning they could send in their own agents to take a second hit on Petrov himself. _Or his daughter_. If he walked away when another innocent died, he'd never forgive himself.

After the funeral, he'd visited Katya's grave twice. The second time he'd held back when he'd seen Petrov's daughter there picking up his white rose and study it. If his cover was blown, he'd do it—he'd let them taken him in for murder and let his handlers deal with all the stress. He'd serve time, knowing it would never be enough to make up for what he did. SHIELD would pull strings so he'd be pulled out within a few months, maybe a year, and after that wouldn't extradite him to Russia.

"I'll find the killer," Ana promised her mother, resting her hand on the tombstone. "I'll find him and make him suffer like he made you suffer all those weeks."

Clint backed away to quickly drop into a crouch at a nearby grave to straighten the flowers a loved one had left.

Ana said a few more hushed words before she turned to leave and noticed him. "You were at the funeral, weren't you?" her eyes moved over him slowly, trying to place him in her known acquaintances. "We haven't met."

"Uh, no… no…" he stood up quickly, holding out his hand. "Alex. I'm so sorry about your mother."

"Everyone's sorry, Alex."

The words sung particularly hard since he was standing right in from of the vengeful daughter who wanted to cause him pain. He drew his hand back, feeling the sweat begin to collect under his collar. Was he giving any emotional hints? Did she actually buy the foreigner-happening-to-know-her-mother act? His poker face was good, but the Petrov family was supposed to be talented at sniffing out lies.

"How did you know my mother?"

There it was. The question that would either make or break him.

"I'm in foreign relations" True enough "and we got into a chat at the Embassy a couple years back. It was my first time on Russian soil and she set me straight in a few key cultural do's and don't's. And then, following the successes of your family, I always watched to see her." He paused, realizing he was laying it on a little too thickly when Ana cocked her head. "You're lucky to have had her as a mother."

"She never mentioned you."

"It's not like I was the most remarkable person she met." Clint moved towards the grave, hoping she'd get the message. When her hand touched his arm, he stopped.

"Thank you for being there. My mother would have appreciated it."

If only she'd known.

Clint made his way down to the parking garage, swinging his keys around one finger and for some stupid reason found himself whistling a carousel song. Losing it. Tomorrow, he'd call in sick and drown his grief in root beer floats and reality dramas that proved his life wasn't as bad as someone else's was. There'd be the usual questions, followed by his stubborn silence and after about two hours of feeling sorry for himself, his handler would march in, unplug the tv and leave a mound of paperwork on the table to which Clint would respond by sulking for another two hours then going to bed early and repeating this process for at least two days before he made himself sit down and tackle the mound of papers. Inevitably, seventy percent of them would be returned with either stick figure drawings in the margins or coffee stains. His handler never did comment on the soiled papers, but Clint had noticed a few of his better drawings somehow find themselves in his handler's desk drawers. His handler would deny everything.

This time, it seemed his handler had made up his mind to stop this cycle before it could start. And Clint could only stare half in astonishment and half in relief when he came upon Phil Coulson, his handler, leaning against the driver's side of his prized black Porsche smudging it with fingerprints.

"Phil… what the hel…?"

Coulson raised one finger to silence him. "If I have to DVR one more episode of _Say Yes to the Dress_ or _Lost_ for you, I will shoot myself in the head."

Clint blanched. "That goes beyond stalking."

"We're SHIELD. We know more than the CIA. Now get in the car."

Muttering under his breath, Clint popped the trunk and threw his duffle in. "Yeah well call us even after you made me DVR a _whole season_ of _Supernanny_ for you." Slamming down the trunk, he marched over to yank open the passenger side and slam that behind him too, although immediately muttered apologies to his car. "I'm not in the mood to debrief tonight, Phil. I don't care about protocol or that stupid feeling that Fury's got that I'm not…"

"This is strictly off the record." Coulson pulled out of the space and began driving through the parking garage, barely sparing a glance at his asset. "When you ran off to Russia without a sanctioned assignment, you can imagine the rumors that began to circulate. Just because you didn't make the shot the first time…"

"I did make the shot." Clint groaned aloud, folding his arms like a petulant child. "I made the shot on the wrong target. _You_ gave me the wrong target." _I shot an innocent woman and you're acting like it's no big deal._

"Clint…"

"Yeah, go ahead and give me the laundry list of reason you gave me the first time I came back because I'm just that kind of an assassin, aren't I, Phil? I'm a killer like the rest of them." He gave a harsh laugh. "I might as well have shot Petrov's daughter while I was at it because hey, why not!"

Coulson was silent for several minutes, driving along the deserted highway in pensive thought. Clint sincerely hoped that even his handler was starting to feel rattled about now. "This is why I'm not letting you stay alone tonight."

The more she thought about it, her lack of ability to escape scared her—her father would have spies monitoring every escape from the country the instant she ran away. Even if she could evade them, it was useless without a passport, which her father kept in his personal vault. He even limited the amount of money that he allowed her to have at any one time and would demand to see expense reports to keep track of how much she spent and what she purchased.

 _Tell me what to do,_ мать. _Tell me how to do what you wouldn't._ Ana stared longingly at the photo of her mother, tracing a finger lightly over its smooth surface. _I need you so much now._

She would leave her father, the promise of power and especially Sasha. That much was for certain. Although Sasha had been her only friend and she would have done anything to make him come with her, she couldn't stay and make herself become his slave as her mother had been Petrov's. Sasha's boyish heart had become tainted from his years within the Petrov estate. Even though Ana couldn't imagine the old Sasha ever hurting her, this new one would do anything to gain the power he lusted after.

"Ana!" An impatient knock sounded on her door, it's noise hardly dying away before the handle was turned and the door swiftly opened without waiting for an answer on her part, Sasha stepping into the room a half second after Ana had stuffed the photograph of her mother inside her pillowcase.


	4. Breaking from Normal

Ana willed the surprise from her face as she turned to see him with a bag slung over his shoulder. The glint of a rifle just visible. "You're leaving."

"I have a hit to take for your father. I won't be gone more than twenty hours." He moved a hand beneath her chin to guide her lips to his.

Ana consented to his embrace. It may be one of her last chances to find any goodness in him—she drew out their kiss, willing it to reach him on a deeper level. If there was anything of that younger boy she used to know, she and Sasha could escape Petrov's snare together. It was a hope that Ana knew would only ever be a dream, not the reality standing before her. "Can I come with you?" she pressed, hopeful. "Our last mission together before we're wed?"

Sasha looked at her sharply. "Are you consenting to becoming my wife, Ana Petrovna?"

She nodded, smiling despite her lack of joy. "I want to be yours, Sasha," she answered, the lies thick on her tongue like syrup. "I want this face, _your_ face, to be the first and last thing I see for the rest of my life." Her hands moved over his face as she spoke and traced over his sharp features, the hard scruff of his beard. "I will, Sasha. After this mission. After we do this, we can be together." She wanted to mean it, but it was her only hope of escape.

 _Part of me will always be in love with that little boy…but not the man he became. Forgive me, Sasha._

A smile spread across his face. "And I will take you as mine, dear Ana."

Accompanying the words was the tiny shackle her mother had once received and consented to—a thin gold ring inlaid with diamonds and sapphires. A chain that had bound her to the bloodthirsty Petrov. A chain that wouldn't wind itself around Ana's neck.

She laughed as he slipped it on her, forcing happiness as she kissed him again. "I already packed."

"Always prepared for everything, that's my Russian butterfly."

Ana smiled pleasantly until he'd left, her eyes drifting down to the ring. _It won't be me, mother. I promise. I'll escape._

* * *

Over their years together, Coulson had spent so much time in Clint's apartment that he knew the ins and outs more than Clint himself did. As soon as they were through the door, his handler rolled up his sleeves and claimed the kitchen as his own. "Get cleaned up."

Clint dropped his duffle where he stood, shaking his head at Coulson's cheek of ordering him around in his own home but consented to the shower.

As the hot water rained down washing off the sweat and grime of the past few days, he wished the guilt could be washed away as easily. He replayed every second of that hit over and over. Katya hadn't deserved to die; Ana hadn't deserved to lose her mother. What was she doing now to find him? What would she do when she _did_ find him? Clint stood beneath the spray, eyes closed as the hurt came as physical as a knife wedged between his ribs. "I want her to find me. I want to pay the consequences for what I did to her."

It was the kind of talk that would earn him a house arrest or a suicide watch order from his handler if Coulson ever heard it.

Pulling himself together, Clint threw on a change of clothes and padded barefoot into the kitchen to see Coulson serving up a genuine steak. His face lit up. "Phil, you spoil me. Why do I need a girlfriend when I've got you in my life." Days of protein bars and rations had left him hungering for a good meal like this. Russian cuisine just didn't cut it.

Coulson chuckled. "I don't go for the office romance. Besides, a handler and his asset…imagine the talk."

Clint could only snicker. Even mentioning it in private could cause the rumors to fly around the SHIELD base. "Where am I going to find a woman who cooks half as good as you do?" He snatched the plate eagerly, inhaling in the smell.

Coulson sat across from him to his own meal, but chose to focus on Clint instead of eating. "Are you ready to talk about what happened yet?" Before Clint could even begin to complain, Coulson cut him off. " _Without_ your list of excuses. I want it now and calmly."

Clint threw the steak a glare of betrayal. "Figures you'd only make the good stuff the drag the sob and tell out of me. I'm hurt, Phil."

"Oh I trust you. I just don't trust you to solve your own emotional problems." He adopted that tone that he knew Clint couldn't argue with. "You didn't go back just for Petrov's wife."

"I went back for the funeral. To make amends for something I shouldn't have agreed to." But even that couldn't make him stop thinking about Ana Petrovna, the girl who no longer had a mother because of him. Even worse, he'd left her alone to the mercies of Petrov—a girl like her didn't deserve that.

Coulson looked at him knowingly. "And you expect me to believe that you _didn't_ notice her very attractive daughter?"

Clint stared at him with his poker face on. "You're reaching too far."

"She was a _very_ attractive woman."

"Sheesh. Stop trying to pair me up with every other woman you happen to think would be good for me. I'm too good at what I do. And after I took the shot at her mother?" he shook his head. "That would be a relationship doomed from the start."

"So you're saying she wasn't at all part of the reason you went back to make amends." Coulson knew better.

"Like I said, you're reaching too far for something that isn't even there."

Dinner continues in a more comfortable banter as Coulson found ways to lower the defenses of his asset. Eventually he got what he wanted and convinced Clint to an early night, gaining the reluctant assurance that a report would be filed in the morning.

* * *

Sasha periodically glanced over at his fiancée and the ring on her finger, the promise that she was now his. He'd watched her with a longing eye since he first met her—first she was the means to Petrov and staying in his favor and now… now she was his anchor. Even though she'd pretended to resist this whole time, he'd know that she cared. All it had taken was the right moment and a shiny ring to bow her down to the level of any other woman. He'd dreamed so often of Petrov's empire and the heights he would take it to when it all belonged to him. No one would stand against him now with Ana submissive at his side but ready to back him in an instant when he asked.

He loved her, he _loved_ her.

He would prove he deserved her when he rose to the heights no other Russian had ever risen or would ever rise again. Then she would know.


End file.
